Americans are expected to travel in record numbers this Fourth of July weekend, despite sky-high gas prices, lingering COVID-19 concerns and an already cascading series of flight delays and cancelations.
Airlines struggling with worker shortages and bad weather canceled hundreds of flights last weekend and the trend spilled over to Monday, when another 747 flights were canceled, according to flight-tracking website Flightaware.com.
Industry analysts are warning air travelers to arrive early, expect long lines and be prepared.
“This is the saddest state of affairs I have seen in 45 years of observing this industry and it will only get worse as demand and flight activity increase,” said Robert W. Mann Jr., an independent airline analyst and consultant in Port Washington, New York.
But the frustrations associated with air travel haven’t dampened the desire of Americans to get out of town. AAA predicts that 47.9 million travelers will drive or fly this weekend, up 3.7% from last year and — almost back to pre-pandemic levels.
Car travel is surging, despite historically high gas prices.
“People are ready for a break and despite things costing more, they are finding ways to still take that much-needed vacation,” said Paula Twidale, AAA Travel senior vice president.
AAA says ongoing concerns with flight cancelations and delays may be driving more people to take to the road.
Consumer complaints about airlines jumped 300% in April over the same month in 2019, the U.S. Department of Transportation reported Thursday.
According to the DOT report, the nation’s 10 major airlines canceled 2.3% of all flights in April, compared to only 0.5% during the same month last year.
Mr. Mann, a former American Airlines senior executive, said the problem has been “decades in the making” and will not go away until carriers “stop blaming others and step up and manage their flights, using their own business rules, as they could have for 20 years.”
He added that the DOT “has been loath to intervene, despite funding the industry through the pandemic.”
“DOT should have called the industry on the carpet each time a check was issued, demanding operational reliability, if not the ‘operational excellence’ a number of them have claimed for years to be pursuing, and have yet to deliver,” Mr. Mann said.
As flights become scarcer, airfares have risen.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, airfares shot up by 18.6% in April, when many people started booking summer flights. A “good deal” round-trip domestic flight averaged $398 in June, according to Hopper — more than $100 pricier than last year.
Flyers Rights, a nonprofit passengers’ advocacy group that advises the Federal Aviation Administration on safety measures, said record-level flight delays and cancellations have affected about 100 million customers this year.
“It’s never been this bad,” said Paul Hudson, the group’s president.
The nation’s major airlines, which scheduled flights this summer based on demand, have started cutting fully-booked departures amid staffing shortages and bad weather conditions.
Mr. Hudson said that while airlines must refund passengers for the canceled flights, they sometimes send travel vouchers instead of payment or delay refunds because it’s “profitable for them.”
After pandemic lockdowns shrunk air travel by as much as 95% beginning in March 2020, the federal government gave $54 billion in bailouts to keep the industry afloat. Many pilots and other employees have since taken early retirement or switched careers.
“Employees are sitting home, collecting their checks from the airlines, and some are getting other jobs. You can’t just restart things after two years,” Mr. Hudson said.
This summer, passengers have stood in hours-long lines as airlines have canceled or delayed thousands of flights in the U.S. and Europe.
The Memorial Day and Father’s Day weekends saw spikes in the number of U.S. domestic flight interruptions.
Some disgruntled customers have vented their frustrations on Twitter.
“There’s nothing to book since most of the flights to said city have been canceled,” sportscaster John Alba wrote in a tweet to United Airlines as he attempted to rebook a flight on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg warned airline CEOs in a meeting that he could force them to hire more pilots.
On Friday, the airlines’ industry group claimed in a letter to Mr. Buttigieg that a shortage of federal air traffic controllers has been a factor in at least one-third of recent cancellations.
Helane Becker, an airlines analyst at Cowen financial services company, said the government didn’t train any new air traffic controllers for two years.
“Between that and the lack of pilots and other crew, we don’t expect an improvement for a few years,” Ms. Becker said.
In response to an email on Monday, the FAA on referred The Washington Times to DOT for a comment.
The DOT said in an email to The Times that it is working collaboratively “to ensure airlines and the entire aviation system are able to meet passengers’ expectations.”
“After receiving $54 billion in pandemic relief to help save the airlines from mass layoffs and bankruptcy, the American people deserve to have their expectations met,” the statement read.
